


Days of Myth

by basketcasewrites



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - High School, Eventual Relationships, Fluff, M/M, Polyamory, Something sweet because they deserved better than a:iw, also they go on a road trip of sorts, for the sake of my mental health and stability—, strange tagged but for the most part he is only mentioned, when I have to think about strange I picture him as keanu Reeves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 15:53:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15933653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basketcasewrites/pseuds/basketcasewrites
Summary: It was sometimes said that those who woke up screaming were cursed; taken by djinn, or by demon.When he heard the tale for the first time, Sam joked that he must have been the most cursed person in New York.✴️Sam's wings will be beautiful, his mother has said as much. He believes her, he just wishes that letting them grow didn't have to be so painful.At least, with Steve and Bucky by his side, he is far from alone.





	1. Quiet

He was not born with his wings.  
Stubs jutted through broken skin, tore at his mother's flesh as she screamed and cried. Tattered her skin into bloodied strips, as she clawed at dirty sheets and forced him from her into the waiting hands of the bent midwife.

His cry, otherworldly, shrieked through the room. Echoed off the pristine white walls, the shining and worn tools.

Bone the colour of ivory broke through his shoulder blades.

"A boy," Sarah Rogers said, her jagged frown collecting a fine plethora of wrinkles around her mouth and nose. "Born too early."

She wrapped the baby, no more than the length of her forearm, in a soft cotton blanket. His peeking bone, edged in blood, ripped through the gentle fabric.

"What will you do?" the assisting nurse murmured, young hands wringing the crooked hem of her smock. "Will you keep him?"

"Melinda—" A sharp chide from Sarah.

Darlene dropped her head forward, an exhausted nod instead of an answer. Dark hair stuck to her sweat-drenched face, hung in her eyes and itched at the bridge of her nose.

Heaving in shallow breaths, she accepted the baby into the warmth of her embrace.

A smile curled her lips upwards, into something soft and sweet. The softer and sweeter the longer she stared into the baby's brand new eyes.

"What will we call him, Darlene?" Sarah asked, with a smile which creased her young face into something aged, her harsh Irish accent a comfort in the confines of the room.

"Samuel," Darlene whispered, tracing the tips of her fingers down the side of the infants face. "We will call him Samuel."

✴️

It was sometimes said that those who woke up screaming were cursed; taken by djinn, or by demon.

When he heard the tale for the first time, Sam joked that he must have been the most cursed person in New York.

In the middle of the night— the quiet so thick that the sound of the wind rustling through the trees leaves was loud enough to drown out the incessant chirping, crickets in every lawn— he woke to the misery of his own screams.

His voice tore at the inside of his throat. Compared to the pain gathered in his back, his arms, the base of his neck, it was nothing.

It was nothing like the bruising from a fist having met his jaw, or the slash from a sword finding a home in his thigh. It was an almost constant sensation, and Sam couldn't run away from it or hide.

Quiet surrounded him. In the absence of noise, it rang in his ears and threatened to deafen him.  
He wanted noise. The sound of traffic in the middle of a sleepless city, the company of voices, the crashing of raindrops against the side of the building. Anything.

Sam stared at his hands, shivering in his lap, above the tangle of thick sheets.

The thoughts, a ceaseless and anxious commentary in his mind, were not jokes when they came to him then, alone and brinking on a raw set of sobs.  
Cursed or poisoned, by a spiteful sorcerer or bored wizard, before he was born.

 _Stupid,_ Sam chided himself. He knew better. Seeking a comfort was better than thinking of how wizards had been banned from practicing, for almost a century now. Better than thinking that if he were cursed at birth the midwives would immediately have known.

He sat in his bed, ignored the logic. _Maybe I really am cursed,_ Sam thought, a sigh on his lips.

A soft knock on his door grabbed his attention, pulled him from the cyclical turn of his thoughts. The bedroom door pushed open. Through the light sheen of tears, clouding his vision, he saw his mother. Her figure, an abstract blur in a pale nightgown, entered. Between sturdy hands, Darlene held a fragile teacup.

"Did I wake you?" Sam asked, out of habit and concern. He knew he had. Knew also that she would let a tiny smile touch her lips, and say no, he had not even disturbed her.

The bed dipped as Darlene sat, sank beneath her added weight. "I was up already," she said, her finger running along the cup's handle.

Sam cocked his head to the side. "At three in the morning?"

"You can tell the time?" Darlene laughed. "At least now I know what I'm paying your tuition fees towards."

"I learn more than that at school, Mom."

"I know," Darlene said. "You _were_ the one who fixed the microwave when it broke."

With movements well-practiced, familiar to her from early morning after early morning of doing the same thing, Darlene placed the teacup into Sam's hands and curled his fingers around its fragile base.

Taking a sip of the tea— piping hot, without flavour if not for the mix of herbs, grown by Sarah's hands and picked anew each afternoon— Sam bit back a shiver, barely avoided the flinch at the taste. Somehow sweet and bitter, acrid and wholesome, all at once.

It stung at his bitten lips, at his throat.

Swallowing around the aftertaste, Sam shook his head, and said, "It wasn't even broken, it just needed to be reset. Or something."

"Take another sip," Darlene instructed. Eyebrows raised pointedly, she continued, "Yeah, well how'd you learn to do that?"

"Google," Sam answered. "It took me literally two minutes and a cellphone." He finished off the rest of the tea, cringing as he forced down the last sip, soggy and diluted grain gathered at the bottom of the cup.

Slowly, in the way a spider weaved its webs, calmness traveled through his body. A numbness beginning in the pit of his stomach, finding its way to his back, to the sturdy base of his wing stumps.

He watched the dregs in the empty cup, gathering in the sinking middle. "Thank God," he began, "that this thing works fast."

Darlene hummed, her only reply. Hands as gentle as they were assured, she smoothed along Sam's back. Felt along the stubs in his back; the skin edging it, healing as fast as it was tearing.

Under her touch, Sam flinched, the tea still working its way all through his system. Still working to dull the pain.

"You'll be okay soon, Sammy."

She hadn't called him Sammy in years, not since he was so small the top of his head grazed the middle of her stomach when he stood on tippy-toes.

"I wish that I could skip this stage," he murmured. "That I could fall asleep, and wake up with all the pain, all the hurting, gone."

"Samuel—" Darlene interjected with a small smile, fondly curling at the corners. Inhaling quietly, she continued, "The pain is sometimes the most important part of the process."

Was he imagining it, or were there tears in her eyes. In her voice, catching her words and causing her to stumble.

Darlene ran a hand, expert by now, over the bone, exposed and poking alongside his right shoulder blade. "Three inches since last night," she noted, "they're growing faster than last year."

"I think they're having my growth spurt for me." He laughed dryly. He was short for sixteen-almost-seventeen, just over five feet, barely at eye-level with most of his friends.

"Your father had beautiful wings," Darlene uttered, wistfully. In that moment— her eyes faraway, the permanent line between her eyes ironed out— she could have been anywhere, in another time completely.

"Yeah." What else was there for him to say?

Sam looked at his mother, out of the corner of his eye and in the dim light of his room. Short horns poked out from her forehead, a pair in parallel; horns, shorter and more a part of her skin, grew from the fold beneath her bottom lip, another pair sat buried in the tops of her cheeks.  
The horns were bone-like, like the stubs of his wings.

Had he ever asked her if it had hurt? He must have, at least once.

"Mom?" Sam began. A slim fold of the blanket between his fingers, he rubbed at it listlessly. "Can I stay at home tomorrow?"

Darlene barked out a short laugh. "You can see how you feel when you wake up."

"I'm awake now, and I feel like crap."

Standing, Darlene said, "You can see how you feel when you _really_ wake up." With the kind of gentle only a mother could be, she bent, placed a soft kiss to the curve of Sam's cheek. "Try and get some sleep, okay?"

The door clicked shut behind her. "Okay," he mumbled to no one.

Listening to the sound of her footsteps, receding into the house as she walked away, Sam let himself fall back. Pillows, five of them, and stuffed with down, caught him.

An exhale of breath, loud in the too early silence. Three AM the clock read, red numbers glowing ominously in his room.

Sleeplessness hung over him; taunted and threatened him. Sparring with the static energy coursing through his veins, he could do nothing to combat it.

Sam stared at the ceiling. Stars, stuck on years ago, in the third week after they had first moved in, glowed brightly in the dark. Pinks beside yellows, beside toxic greens and deep blues. A sky of his own making.

A soft knock sounded on the window by his bed, on his right and partner to the window on his left.

If he were a more poetic person, Sam might have mused that this was the night of soft knocks, of quiet disturbances. If he were a more poetic person he would not have cringed as the words flitted through his mind, immediately made him feel like the worst kind of fool.

Again, the knock came. A light rapping of knuckles against glass in a pattern he had played a part in creating. There again, a third time: two sharp touches in quick succession of each other, a short pause, a last touch.

He knew who it was. He didn't need to hear the loudly whispered, "Sam? It's us," to know.

He pressed himself against the pillows, the muffled tear of the untreated fabric inaudible to ears too used to hearing the sound, and picked at edge of his blanket.

 _Obstinate,_ that's how Bucky liked to describe Sam. _Fucking stubborn._

"What do you want?" Sam asked, voice raised loud enough for them to hear. The irritation lacing his words slight, and put-upon.

"Seriously, Sam, open up. It's cold out here," a second voice, as known to his ears as the first, called out.

Bucky and Steve. Everywhere the one went, the other would follow. Even in the most uncertain of times, that fact was unchanging— as if they were joined at the arm, at the wrist, the tips of their fingers, sewn together with thread so strong and so fine it held them together from their very bones.

Dropping his head back, a soft pop echoed in the room, a soft sigh escaped from his mouth and curled until it settled heavily on his chest.  
If he stayed in bed, ignored them long enough, they would understand. Leave without any questions, without a prompt or problem.

See, Steve and Bucky knew each other better than they knew anybody else; better than they knew themselves. And they also knew Sam.  
In a different world the three of them might have been the same person, shared the same mind, had the very same soul.

Maybe, for that reason, he could never turn them away.

Wooden floors cold against his bare feet, Sam slipped out of bed. Burrowing into his sweater, a brown as warm as the tips of his fingers poking from the long sleeves and the curve of his neck which settled beneath the stretched collar, he walked the few steps to the window beside his cluttered bedside table.

Sam inched open the curtains, careful not to tug.

The sight of Steve and Bucky, crowded close together in the tight space of the fire escape, danced a small smirk on his lips. Bucky unfolded his arms from around his chest to aim a middle finger at Sam, and his smirk blossomed into a full smile.

The window stuck when Sam pushed it up, opening it wide after a few tries. He dusted his hands on his thighs and flecks of peeling yellow paint caught onto the fabric of his leggings.

"Can we," Steve gestured into the room with a nod of his head, "come in?"

A soft wind ruffled Steve's hair, blond and sleep-tangled into curls, and danced through the brunette locks Bucky wore gathered in a tiny, simple braid. Cold air, drifting into the warm room, sent a shiver up Sam's side before being lost to the heat emanating from the floor.

Sam rolled his shoulders back. He unlocked his arms from across his chest, stepped aside.

"Come in," he said. A sigh clung to his words, as if the utterance of the words was a chore. As if a world existed where turning Steve and Bucky away was anything more than a passing thought.

They clambered through the window. Soundless. Practiced.

▪️

"How're you feeling?" Steve asked.

Sam stood on the tips of his toes, reached his fingers to the ceiling. Stretching, he held back most of a yawn.

Cross-legged on the floor, Steve sat leaning against the chest of drawers which stood solid against the wall. He shone golden even in the dim light of the bedside lamp. Maybe it was fae thing, Sam had always wondered.

"Better," he said, shortly, and shrugged. The taste of Irish apple tart sat heavy on his tongue.

"His Ma's baking does that," Bucky added, "makes people feel better."

The room was on a corner, and windows adorned two of the four walls. The two which framed Sam's bed, the one parallel to his bed which was framed by soft white curtains.  
Bare feet folded underneath him, Bucky curled in the window seat. He rested against the excessive gathering of pillows, picked at the apple tart absentmindedly.

Corner of his mouth lifting into a muted smile, Steve said, "Must be a fae thing."

"Non-anwer," Sam protested, "Try again." He settled back onto his feet, met Steve with a eye-creasing grin.

"It gives me gas," Bucky said, swallowing another mouthful.

"Woah, Barnes," Steve exaggerated, a laugh hanging onto each drawn out syllable, "Unattractive!" He called out, loudly and as if he were the world's most pompous judge. He chucked a loosely bundled shirt at Bucky, one of Sam's which littered the floor.

With the practiced ease of a sportsman, Bucky caught the T-shirt. "Thanks," he said, raising his shoulders in a small shrug, "this is my favourite tee."

"You can't have that, Bucky. You still have the one you took the other night— _Last_ night? Yesterday morning?" Sam shrugged. "And the sweater I let you borrow on Wednesday."

"What?" Bucky protested, voice light and carrying no conviction. "Your clothes are nicer, and much warmer. Also— _Also,_ " he paused, lifted a finger, and continued, "all your clothes smell like you."

Barking out a laugh, Sam looked at Steve. "Feel free to jump in at any time."

Steve shook his head. He raised his hands in apology, in mock surrender. "He already steals all my clothes, I don't know what I can do to stop him from stealing yours."

"You could call me ugly again. Maybe that'll help." Bucky threw the shirt back, solidly hitting the round of Steve's shoulder. Voice a quiet rumbling, he grumbled, "Fucking keep it then. I don't even like it that much."

✴️

Windows upon each wall. Each of their curtains drawn. Soft sunlight streamed through into the room, dusted over Sam's closed eyes.

He woke with a start.

Pain, sharp and without warning, spread across his back. A million different needles stuck into each curve of him, and the beginning of a constant ache sent him reeling from the weight of Steve's arm across his middle.

Maybe he yelled. If he had, he did not remember, but he was not the only one to startle into a sudden awakening.

"What's wrong?" Steve asked, concern fighting against his grogginess and seeping in.

"Did I wake you?" Bucky asked at the same time.

Worry in Bucky's words; in the crease of his brow.  
In those few hours of sleep, slowly becoming more tangled together on the thick carpet beside his bed, his sleeve had run up to the bend of his arm.  
Sunlight, so soft when it touched all else, was a sharp glare reflecting off the exposed expanse of Bucky's glassy arm.

Sam shook his head. "No," he said, on a gasping breath he inhaled sharply. "No. It wasn't you guys."

"Wings?" Steve asked. Sleep rubbed from his eyes, wide awake, he sat up.

Their eyes stayed on him, watched him carefully. Sam didn't want that— the careful stares, wondering whether to run and call for the nearest help or to stay and listen when Sam said not to worry. Didn't want the hovering, as if he were fragile, made of glass.

He nodded. Over his head, Sam could feel the glance that Steve and Bucky shared.

"The tea's wearing off faster now?" Steve queried quietly. "Ma said it'll start to do that when your body gets used to it."

"It's fine."

Against the space between Sam's shoulder blades, Steve rested his hand. Steve radiated a warmth, a concentrated heat which spread down the curve of his spine. When he lifted his hand, the pain was gone.

"It's good that I have a fae as friend," Sam uttered, letting out a tired and strangled laugh.

"Are you just using me for my magic, Wilson?" Steve asked, pulling his face into a thin frown. But he was Steve, and he couldn't fake being upset— not for long, and not when it was aimed at Sam.  
He nudged Sam lightly, met his eye and smiled. Quietly, sincerely he said, "I'm happy to help, you know that, right? Always."

"I know."

Bucky coughed lightly. Fidgeting with a string of cotton, straying from the loose sweatpants, he looked at the clock hanging above Sam's desk.  
He wasn't a morning person, Sam had spent enough mornings with him to know. Silence was what was expected of Bucky, an exhausted roughness that eroded somewhere between his first bite of food and second sip of scalding coffee.

When he stood and cast a shadowed gaze over Steve, turning to leave with little more than a gruff "Steve, we should go" Sam was not offended.

Steve stretched, rolled his shoulders in smooth circles. "Yeah," he said, muffling a yawn with the back of his hand.

"Take your time. It's not like I'm waiting for you."

Looking to Bucky, impatient as he stood at the window, Steve gathered his jacket into his arms. An edge crept into his voice, he sniped, "Don't wait for me if you're gonna complain. What, you think I'll get lost between here and upstairs?"

"I'll fucking leave you here, watch."

He climbed out the window, less than agile. A short nod at Sam was his last moment of recognition before he dragged himself up the rickety flight of stairs leading from Sam's room to Steve's.

Sam closed his eyes, pulled the blanket tight around himself. Whatever Steve had done— numbing, sending a ribbon of sweet painlessness curling around him— made him want for even a minute more of sleep.

"Get some coffee in you," Steve ordered lightly, standing over Sam and looking down at him. "Some breakfast, too."

An eye cracked open. "Sure."

It was early enough; another half hour of sleep, and Sam would still be on time for school. On time enough, at least.

Steve stayed, fidgeted in place. "You, uh. Do you want to come up for breakfast?" he asked, a steady hand running through his hair.

"Nah, Steve. Think I'll spend the morning with my mom. She's on the early shift for the next few days."

"Oh, yeah, okay," Steve said. He slipped into his sneakers, in place against the bed, chuckled to himself under his breath. "See you downstairs. In an hour maybe?"

"Usual time," Sam said quietly.

Eyes slipped shut, he listened to Steve's quieting footsteps, creaking on the old floorboards he forgot to avoid. Inhaled to his hushed "bye" and fell into a light, dreamless sleep with the sound of the closing window, Steve and Bucky's signature scents mingling in his room.


	2. The City

"Plans for today?" Darlene asked. The scent of her coffee was strong and bitter, a tangible substance filling the room as she stirred.

Barely visible bags hung under her eyes. A throwaway thought: Sam wished he looked that well-rested, as if his sleep were not disrupted for even a second. He pictured himself, tired and worn out, and he wanted to pull a scarf up over his head and around his face.

"Just school." His shrug a dismissal. "I might go out with Steve and Bucky later."

He met her eyes across the island, standing in the middle of their expansive kitchen, and matched her smile. Beneath the makeup— or magic— the careful way she held her features into the epitome of serenity, exhaustion danced in every curve of Darlene's face.

His hand tightened around the old mug. The cup brimmed with tea, and he with the knowledge that the worry lines etched in his mother's skin would not be there if not for him.

They matched soft smiles.

"Sarah stopped by this morning with some more herbs," Darlene said. Tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear, she let out a small laugh. "Can you imagine if I had _half_ the green thumb that woman has? Or even one-third?"

Despite himself, Sam cringed. "Mom, I love you more than anything, but you couldn't even grow a cactus."

The florist had said succulents were some of the easiest plants to look after. Three weeks later, wide-eyed and ashen faced, the florists' daughter said she did not know that people who could destroy a cactus actually existed.

"In my defense, I am an extremely busy woman," Darlene pointed out, tapping the tabletop with her index finger, "And _,_ if I remember correctly, it didn't die."

"First of all, Mom, it was a _cactus_." Sam prodded gently. "Secondly, it might not have died, but I'm pretty sure Annelle used the word _destroy._ People don't use destroy lightly."

From his mother he had learned to school his features into something neutral, into something that did not betray his mind. But the light in Darlene's eyes sparked the light in his, and the curve of her mouth twitched his lips into a sweet smile.

From her lobes to the line of her shoulders, her earrings reached. Shaking her head, they twinkled.

"Okay, now. Hurry up." Darlene slid a plate of toast to him— cooling in the way he liked, warm enough the butter did not instantly melt. "You don't need another late slip this semester."

"Mom?"

"Yeah, babe?"

"The green thumb? It's probably a fae thing."

Darlene's smile was one Sam knew too well. After seventeen years he knew there were a million things he deserved for how he exhausted her— that smile, the one only a mother could give, was not one of them.

"Well who wants to be a fae, right?" Darlene poised with a scandalous waggle of her eyebrows. "I quite like not having any idea what to do with plants and medicines. I can be the notorious _Succulent Killer_."

" _No_." Sam groaned. "Please don't bring out the concept art again."

Disappearing around the corner, into the home office she kept, Sam just about heard her soft laugh. Her muffled, "Maybe that'll be your next punishment."

Tea burned the tip of his tongue, Sam hurried through the rest of his simple breakfast.

A quick kiss to his mother's cheek as she readied herself for a Skype meeting, a hasty "Love you, see you later" exchanged before he threw his backpack over his shoulder and let the front door click behind him.

One flight of narrow stairs stood between his and the ground floor.  
His descent was a light jog. Absently hoping he wouldn't trip and fall, Sam pulled his cellphone from his bag and opened his and Steve's last conversation.

 _Where are you?_ Sam texted.

From somewhere above him came the sound of tiny footsteps. A soft _meow_ forced Sam's face into a gentle smile.

 _ALMOST READY!_ Steve texted back instantly, a row of large smiley faces following his message.

For all the enthusiasm Steve's message contained, Sam knew better. Steve and Bucky being earlier than Sam was as rare an occasion as a triple rainbow. Hell, Sam corrected, keeping an eye on his phone, a quadruple rainbow.

The short clip of Steve, in pajamas and laying in an unmade bed, yelling at Bucky to get out of the bathroom, proved Sam right.

He shook his head. Pulled the inside of his cheek between his teeth, if just to keep the grin from growing into something unmanageable.

 _I won't wait more than ten minutes,_ he sent _._ Two rows of angry face emojis added to get across his point _._

 _If Tip Top is walking around again send her up,_ Steve ignored the message and said. _Ma said._ _Please :*_

Tip Top was the young cat who, one morning and out of nowhere, had been found sleeping curled up at the base of an empty flowerpot.  
Fur the colour of beach sand. A stray without a collar, who looked as if she had never spent a day out of a house or a moment in the streets.

_She's already on your floor I think._

Nobody had claimed her as theirs, and soon she became as much a part of the building as the people themselves.

 _Kay_ _._ S _ee you in ten._

 _Sure -_-_ He sent and put his phone into his back pocket, stepped out from the building.

Sounds of the city— loud enough to be deafening— welcomed and enveloped him.

He breathed in the amalgamated scent of people, of coffee and fresh fruit from the farmer's market which opened on Wednesday mornings without fail, of perfumes floating from the Succubi run clothing store across the road. A faint undertone of blood from the group of drunken looking vampires who passed, hungover from whatever partying vampires did on Tuesday nights.

He had never lived anywhere else. Could not even bring himself to fully imagine it.

"Get out of here!" Hudson, the owner of the corner store yelled. Sam turned his head at the shout, fraught with a level of intense anger he had thankfully only been on the receiving end of once.

A small boy, dressed in green and black from head to toe, flew from the store and landed on his butt. It was comical, Sam didn't bother denying it. If only for the fact that he knew the person.

"I give you chance after chance," Hudson yelled, her face an infuriated shade of red, she threw a long green coat out the door. "If you even _try t_ o get in my shop one more time, I'll call the cops. Jotun scum."

Loki pulled the coat around himself. Blood from a small scratch dotted his cheek, he wiped it away with a small smile. Sam watched him close enough to see him pull a package, the size of his palm, out from inside his coat.

He carried mischief in his eyes and an icy coldness with his presence. Turning away from the store, Loki walked in the opposite direction of Montgomery High. When he slinked by, a blast of air hit Sam and he wrapped himself tighter in his jacket.

The jacket he wore sat heavy on his shoulders. It framed Sam's shoulders nicely— Bucky had said as much, a smile on his lips, a look in his eyes that Sam could not quite read, but had nonetheless sent a shiver up his spine.

 _Heard yelling._ Sam's phone vibrated with Bucky's quick series of texts. _U_ _ok_ _??_ _Wht_ _happened???_

He toed at a crack in the sidewalk, his sneaker gathering another layer of dust. A plethora of them; tiny lightning bolts against a background of cements. An expanse of grey, lush green fighting to touch the sky.

 _Loki._ He didn't have to say anymore than that, everybody knew Loki. At least, everybody knew how he behaved.

Bucky must have passed his phone on to Steve, Sam figured, because the next message was from him.  
No name, or indication, just a _you're okay, right?_ But Sam knew, and he sent a quick assurance.

People passed him. Hurrying, even that early in the morning, or slouching as if they had nowhere to be. He watched them, silently.  
Breathed in the perfume of a passing siren, dressed in a suit Bucky would appreciate, with her hair pulled back in a low chignon that Steve would not hesitate to draw. Phone to her ear, Sam flinched at the sharpness in her tone; the cutting "Not another word until I get there" left Sam speechless until she was out of sight.

"'Scuse." Someone brightly feathered from head to toe murmured as they pushed past.

Absent-mindedly, taking a step out of the way and pressing himself against the wall, Sam pulled the jacket around himself.

 _JBB_ _._ His fingers, dry in the chill, ran over the initials embroidered into the jacket. Soft white felt, over a rich purple cotton.

A sharp _hoot!_ drew him from his absent staring. He lifted his head in time, caught Peggy's sweeping wave and Angie's bright smile. The little red car was one of the most elegant cars anyone at Montgomery High had, zooming past it soon reached the traffic light. Stopped at the red.  
They still had their early morning coffee and donut run, an idle in town square. Time for a detour to make out behind the school building before first bell rung. Little rituals Angie and Peggy were known to do every morning, without fail.

The sunlight caught on Peggy's wings, sent rays of fractured light through her spotless windows.  
She wore her wings like a cape. The colours of a rainbow, patterned like stained glass, when Peggy stood they fell flaccid to the backs of her ankles, nearly dusted the floor.

They were things of beauty. Hers without pain, Sam was sure. Sam envied them as much as he admired them.

"Good morning, Sam," Peggy leaned out of the car and yelled. Her smooth British accent, soft and pronouncing each syllable with care, cut through easily through the noise.

 _Why did she drive everywhere when she could just as easily fly?_ Sam had often thought of asking her.

If he had wings— actual, working wings, powerful enough to lift him from the ground as if he weighed nothing— the sky would hold him eternally, the land would weep for the feel of his feet.  
He would never walk again.

Sam answered her short greeting with a smile and a wave, arm dropped just before red changed to green and Peggy and Angie were gone.

"Was that Pegs?" Steve asked, skipping down the steps and coming up behind Sam. He jangled when he walked, the mass collection of tabs— pulled from soda cans and attached to keyrings— on his worn satchel hitting together with each movement.

"Yeah," Sam pushed himself off the wall and said. With an offhand gesture to the slim watch Steve wore, he said, "What's the point of that thing if you're never on time."

Bucky locked the gate behind them. Stuffing his hands in his pockets he jogged down the short flight of stairs, his black boots banging loudly with each step.

He ran a hand through his hair. "Are you listening, Steven?" A smirk on his face as he fell into step with them.

" _I_ am not one who spent an hour on my hair." Steve hiked his backpack an inch higher, grumbled something inaudible under his breath.

Sam craned his neck to take a look at Steve's hair. "It suits you," he said, "The disheveled, just got outta bed look. Like you just woke up and forgot you had to leave your room."

"Isn't that what I said before we left?" A faraway look dawned in Bucky's eyes, his features drew into something teasing and thoughtful.

"Sure," Steve said, with a roll of his eyes.

If Sam didn't know him better, he would have take the way Steve ran a hand through his hair as an act of self-consciousness.

 _The hair_ _really does suit you,_ Sam wanted to offer— because it did. It was effortless and done without much care. Was about to say as much when Steve started patting the legs of his jeans, the pocket in the front of his fitted sweater that was probably a size too small.

Artists, people said were scatterbrained by nature. Whether based in any fact at all, Steve surely lived up to that stereotype. Almost painfully so.

"Buck, do you have my keys?" Steve asked, rooting around in his back pocket. Turning an embarrassed shade of red when Bucky shook his head slowly, he asked, "Did you see me take them? Uh. Okay, two gimme minutes. I'll just run up—"

"Here, knucklehead," Sam said, swinging the car keys in Steve's face. Replacing Steve's water bottle in the backpack's side pouch, where the keys had sat hidden.

"I abhor that name," Steve affected, "It's distasteful."

Steve reached for the keys, attached to another ever-growing group of soda can tabs. Without difficulty, Sam pulled his arm away— "Watch where you swing your things," a troll the colour of moss and the height of Steve's knees yelled as they rudely pushed past— and held it behind his back.

"What? No 'thanks', _nothing_?"

"Thank you, Sam. I'm very grateful, Sam. Give me my fucking keys, Sam." A clearing of the throat. " _Please_."

"The law says... I found the keys, so I drive."

A soft _beep_ sounded out when Sam pressed the car remote. Underneath the bustling sounds of the city, it was barely audible.

"That _is_ the law," Bucky said, emphasising his statement with an agreeing dip of his head. He raised his shoulders in a short shrug and followed Sam into Steve's car, a small blue VW which he had painstakingly spent an entire summer restoring to its glory. "The law also says ugliest gets in the back." The smile on Bucky's face deceivingly saccharine as he slipped into the passenger seat.

"You're both hilarious." A deadpan. Steve shut the back door, flinched at the loud thud.

✴️

Sam was not the most careful of drivers, but he was far from reckless. They made it to school with five minutes to spare before first bell rung.

"See you at break?" Bucky nodded at Sam and asked. Steve didn't have lunch the same period as them most days, Bucky new both Sam and Steve's timetable by heart.

"Hey, Barnes," Rumlow greeted loudly, his arm slung across the shoulders of a curly-haired exchange student.

Bucky grunted a reply. Shrugged off the older boys arm in the most polite way possible. He couldn't stand that guy, none of them could.

At least, unlike Bucky, Steve and Sam weren't on the soccer team. For them, it was easier to avoid Rumlow. And it wasn't as rude for them to ignore him, either.

"Depends," Sam began, taking a sip of herbal tea from the travel mug he had bought about three months ago. It didn't hurt to be prepared, especially since he had advanced English Literature for his first lesson.

"On what?"

"What do you know about the French Revolution?"

Bucky pulled his features into an exaggerated frown, widened his eyes and shook his head. "Absolutely nothing. _But—_ _"_ He jiggled his backpack. "I do have brownies."

"I packed our lunches, Buck. We both have brownies."

Sam let out a quiet laugh, more a happy exhale of air than anything.

Students milled around the courtyard, some of the seniors were rushing to make it for morning assembly. On the far side of the grounds, Sam saw Peggy and Angie share a quick kiss before separating, one to the student hall and the other main office.

He couldn't help himself, it brought a smile to his face.

"They're good together," Steve noted, nodding at Angie and Peggy. The same small smile still on his lips, he went back to rooting around in the trunk of his car, gathering his art supplies.

Steve and Peggy had dated for about three months, from the end of the year's before Summer. As far as Sam knew, they hadn't broken up. Not exactly. It was more they had drifted apart and, sooner or later, they started dating other people.

Hooking his hands around the bags straps, Sam made towards the school's arcing entrance. "Alright. Bye." He called to them, a wave over his shoulder.

Bucky jogged after him. He was almost completely dressed in black, his trousers a pale brown; a contrast to the soft pink of Sam's shirt, the faded blue of his jeans.

"Wait a sec, will you." Bucky stopped him with a hand on Sam's shoulder. He tugged at the jacket's slim purple and white collar. "You might wanna give me this back."

Sam pulled the jacket tighter around himself. "It's warm. So, you might have to fight it off me."

"You know." Underneath the level gaze and suave exterior, was Bucky blushing? The chill always coloured his face that pale pink so Sam couldn't tell, but it looked like a blush. And Sam hoped it was a blush. Bucky cleared his throat. "You know only the team's... partners... get to wear these right?"

"Then, Buchanan, consider yourself the luckiest man alive, because I guess I'm your partner _,"_ Sam said with a shrug and a devilish grin. Burying his hands in his pockets, Sam effortlessly pivoted on the heels of his feet. "Bye, _partner_!"

"Bye!"

His shoulders twinged with a short, dull pain. Gone before he even properly registered it. Sam wondered if this— this feeling of butterflies, of uncertain certainty, of floating and falling— was how it felt to fly.

✴️

He sat through English. Intently listened to Mrs Kaplan's in depth analysis of Lady Macbeth's character.

The class was undoubtedly Sam's favourite, it was the students he shared it with that Sam was not overly fond of.

A wadded up ball of paper hit the side of his head. He tried to ignore it, flicked away the second one which followed and landed on his desk.

"Is there a problem, Mr Stark?" Mrs Kaplan queried. Her back to the class, she continued writing a list of keywords. Met by silence, she said, "That's what I thought."

A second passed. Sam breathed out a sigh of relief that nothing else was thrown at him.

But Tony tapped Sam lightly on his back and it was all Sam could do to not roll his eyes. "So, Bird Boy," Tony hissed, under his breath.

"Hmm." Sam answered in a short hum under his breath.

"You and the Soldier finally getting it on?" he asked, voice loud enough to draw an eye or two from some of the people circling them.

"Again—" Mrs Kaplan raised Tony's notebook and dropped it with a thud. Certainly an upside of her being a witch, it didn't take much effort for her to dole out simple punishments. "Is there a problem, _Mr Stark_?"

"No, miss," Tony grumbled his apology.

Sam waited for Mrs Kaplan to get back to working through the notes before he turned and whispered, "It sounds a lot like that's your ultimate fantasy."

"It sounds a lot like _that's_ your admission," Tony answered.

Facing forward, Sam simply shrugged. He was no longer up for any conversation.

Calculus then. If he got beyond the headache searing across the front of his forehead that calculus always gave him, the lesson was uneventful as the lesson the day before. And the day before that. And before that.

In Biology, the substitute teacher buried himself behind a pile of thick textbooks and left the class to their own devices.

Carol Danvers had been his lab partner since Sophomore year. He was sure Lab was her favourite time of the week, but now she took a break from studying a fish scale through the microscope to elbow Sam in his ribs.

"What happened?" Sam asked. He paused from completing his World History notes, and looked over at her.

She stared at him. Unblinking; unnerving.

Carol was an extraordinary peculiarity.

There were fire-shifters and pyrokinetics, even some demons who lived in fire and were entirely of flame. Very few were like her.  
Every hair on Carol's body was a flame of flickering intensity and, as she watched Sam, she let the flames on her head and fingertips dance.

"Are you going to say anything?"

She tapped a finger against Bucky's jacket, draped over the back of Sam's chair. "Diana wears mine. That's all."

Shrugging, she turned back to the microscope.

"Why is everybody so interested in my love life?"

"You've been single forever." Carol shrugged, eye to the machine. "And I guess Bucky is somewhat of a catch? He seems nice enough. Attractive enough. I'd definitely date a his sister if he had one."

They fell back into a regular and familiar pattern— quiet, broken with moments of work related conversation.

She didn't ask about Bucky again, and Sam was grateful.

He wanted to focus on Marie Antoinette. He wanted to focus on Robespierre's Reign of Terror. He wanted to focus on France, and France's problems from another century.  
Not on the way Bucky's jacket smelled exactly like him— masculine and mint, fresh cut grass and expensive cologne. Or that, when he wore it, it was like Bucky was holding him.  
He certainly didn't want to focus on any of that, because then his traitorous mind would find its way to similar, beautiful, thoughts of Steve.

He shook his head, forcibly chased the thoughts away. _France,_ Sam reminded himself. His paper was due fifth period and he was barely halfway through.

Hunched over the table, the ache in his shoulders inched its way back.

Five more minutes, read the clock hanging in the front of the room.

Sam rolled his shoulders back. He itched to stretch his arms to the sky. If he asked to leave, he was sure the substitute wouldn't stop him. If he left right then, the substitute would probably not even notice— Wanda and Pietro were doing just that, letting the door fall shut behind them as they exited without permission.

A stab of pain; an intake of breath.  
Sam grabbed his backpack from the floor and pulled it into his lap. The bag didn't have an outside pocket, so he kept his travel mug alongside his notebooks. It was secure enough, and didn't leak, not even when violently jostled.

The cup sat empty. Each drop of tea downed somewhere through the middle of a first period that seemed like ages in the past.

A drawn out shriek awakened the school. Chairs scraped back, backpacks were gathered, conversations continued as students filtered out into the hall.

 _Deep breaths,_ Sam reminded himself. Bucky would be waiting for him in the cafeteria. But, gripping his backpack to the expanse of his chest, he hurried to the nearest bathroom. _Calming breaths._

He remembered the yoga classes he and Steve had sat in on when Natasha had begun her spiritual fitness phase.

A deep breath in through his nose, he tried to clear his mind.  
A breath out through his mouth, he tried to focus on something other than the fact of the steadily worsening ache.

"Sorry. Sorry," Sam repeated, attempting to navigate his way through the solid, moving crowd of students.

" _Hey_." Someone he bumped lightly against said, the word dying on the tale end of a startled laugh.

The 'sorry' died on Sam's lips at the strong hands tightening around his upperarms, keeping Sam firmly in place when all he wanted to do was get away from everyone and everything. If only for a few seconds.

"It's me." And the familiarity of the voice, the soothing roughness, it stilled him. It calmed him.

Bucky waited. He kept his eyes trained on Sam, held him, ignored the irritated remarks of people having to alter their paths and pass around them, and waited.

"Uh—" Sam cut himself off, squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm running around like a fool."

Without any force, Bucky shook a small travel mug, bright orange and laughably out of line with everything else Bucky owned. "You are, but it's okay... You looking for this?"

"Mine ran out already," Sam informed Bucky, swallowing down half of the cup within a few moments.

The shaking in his fingers, little tremors that would have soon found its way to the rest of his body the harder Sam tried to bury his pain, halted. Numbness spread from the pit of his stomach to his shoulders. It greeted him, and he welcomed it the way one would welcome an old friend.

"Did Steve send you with this?" Sam asked, gesturing at the cup with a nod of his head.

Bucky nodded. "He asked me... 'Cause he forgot about it this morning."

He must have just come out of practice, his hair hanging wet from the gym shower, with strands hanging loosely in front of his eyes.

Tucking the stray hair behind his ear, Bucky lowered his voice for Sam to hear. "You wanna get outta here?"

Sam dropped his head in a nod, and noticed the way that Bucky flexed his glass hand. The way Bucky slipped it into his hoodie pocket and turned, beckoned Sam to follow.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was on about 930 words when I opened it this morning. I really wanted to get this mess of words out before the weekend was over and for once my muses seemed to be on my side.  
> I had so much more planned for the chapter, but I didn't know if you all would want a REALLY long chapter.  
> Hope you like it, and I can't wait to see you at the next update ♡


	3. I'll Go With You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title taken from my blood by twenty one pilots

"You don't have to hide it, you know," Sam said.

Stands rose around them. Nestled in the back of the school was the training arena, a building as old as the school. Empty and isolated with almost everybody else in their classes, it was eerily quiet; intimate.

Blades of grass tickled and poked at his skin— pricked at the back of his neck, the sides of his hands. Grass would catch in his hair and in his clothes, but Sam didn't mind. He couldn't care less.

"Huh?" Bucky asked, so close his voice was in Sam's ear, his arm brushed against Sam's arm.

"Your arm," Sam continued, his eyes only just flickering from the sky to Bucky, "You don't have to hide it. Not so much."

"I'm not hiding it." A low grumble of words.

He raised his left arm from where it rested, between them and crushing the grass. Curl, uncurl, curl, uncurl— a slow rhythm of movement, catching sunlight in rays and scattering rainbows like a disco ball of fluid glass. Sam couldn't pull his eyes away.

"It's beautiful," Sam murmured. "What you can do, it's beautiful."

Carol Danvers, completely of fire, was one peculiarity. Bucky was another. He came from nowhere, from no one. As far as anybody could tell, the only part of him that was non-human was his arm.

"It's nothing." But he didn't drop his hand. As captivated by the dancing colours as Sam, it seemed.

Barely a breath of hesitance; a short inhale, a shorter exhale. Sam's hands were gentle and unscarred, the only parts of his body that healed over after even the most arduous of tasks.  
They were monarch hands, Fae hands. Not like the rough and broken skin on Bucky's right hand, not even like the sharp diamond-like glass of his left.

Sam touched his fingers to the glass— pulsing warmth to lifeless ice. Ran his fingers over the bumps, over the places where a weaker mineral would have cracked.

"People think we're dating now, just so you know," Sam thought he should warn. And the utterance of those words sent a thrill up his spine.

He caught the way Bucky's eyes fluttered closed, the way a smile touched his lips for a second. Gone within a blink.

Turning his hand, so that his palm met Sam's traveling hand, Bucky said, plainly, "Good for them."

Maybe Sam was seeing things after all. He didn't doubt it. The Faes potions were known for having hallucinatory side effects, and Sam had been having large amounts of Sarah's tea lately.

He didn't dwell. Dwelling would be for later, in that moment he was content with just _being_ with Bucky. Tucked away and with only each other's company, the only thing that would make the moment better was if Steve were to lay framing Sam on his other side.

"How're you feeling?" Bucky questioned, cautious. "The ground's not, like, making your back worse or anything, is it?"

"I'm fine." Sam laughed, almost without humour. "On a scale of one to ten, I have negative feeling in my back."

"Sarah says a good massage always helps."

"Are you offering?"

Fingers flexed. "It's good for a few things." A easy smile rucked up his solid features.

"You did not just say that." Sam's voice swallowed a bark of laughter.

"I said what I said."

Sam flicked at Bucky's forearm.

He didn't want this— this flirting as they always did, sharing smiles and secret jokes as they always did.  
He loved it and he hated it. Because he may have been part Angel but he was still just a boy. A boy who wasn't entirely sure of what his heart could take.

He rubbed at the knob of Bucky's wrist. "Did it hurt?" he asked, not for the first time. "Does it hurt?"

Soft light on Bucky's face. A kiss of it on his brow.

"My arm turned to glass, Sam," Bucky snorted, "So what do you think?"

"If it's anything like what I'm going through... I think you should tell me how you made it through."

A beat of silence. His heart a thud in his chest, a tool of measurement.

Maybe he imagined the stifling silence and how quick it settled. Or the disguised catch in his breath, the cover of it with a cough.

His mouth clamped, a cage keeping his secrets inside his throat. His thoughts written all over in face, in every confusing crease. Sam stared at him, waited for the words, whatever they were, to tumble free.

"The Fae are everywhere." His answer is not what Sam hoped for; unsatisfactory. "They do a lot for a little."

"You're lying."

"Okay," Bucky said; unmoving, a wall of stone. He sighed, and his eyes fell close; a wall, yes, but one with cracks and vulnerabilities. "It's not something I can really talk about."

"Just tell me, Barnes," Sam pushed. "No secrets between partners right."

And, in that moment, it seemed like his defenses were crumbling. Falling to the ground in heavy crashes.

Bucky pulled his hand to his chest. Rubbed at the glass hand with the cracking tips of his flesh hand.

"What are you two doing out here?" Monsieur Wayan yelled. The least French teacher in the French department, he cut a hulking figure.

"It's still lunch, sir," Sam answered.

The last bell had rung, he had heard it distantly. Its echo already faded into classrooms.

"This area is off-limits when not in use," Monsieur continued, delicate hands on monstrous horse thighs. "Are you gladiators? Exactly. I didn't think so."

Bucky wrapped his fingers around Sam's hand. Yanking down, stopping Sam from uttering another word.

An easy smile masked his grinding teeth, the jump in his cheek. He stood, half-heartedly dusted grass from the backs of his thighs. "My friends not feeling too well, _Monsieur_ ," Bucky says, level and diplomatic, "and the day was so beautiful, I thought it would make him feel better."

" _Bien_ _sûr_."

"Are you sure you're not some sort of a siren?" Sam asked. His voice an excited whisper, he leaned into Bucky as they stumbled away from Monsieur Wayan, who had let them go with barely a glance and a wave of his hand.

Falling into each other, giggling easily about nothing, they rounded another corner. Made a path for the school's entrance.

"No. I mean, yeah. I'm sure."

Wide steps, four of them and all tiled in a whitish-pink, lead to Montgomery High's main entrance.  
A gentle tug on the sleeve of his— of Bucky's— jacket stopped Sam on the second stair of the short flight.

Bucky was taller than him— not by much, just enough that it mattered. But, like this, they stood to the same height. They met brown eye to metallic grey eye.

"Tell me how you did it?" Sam laid a hand on Bucky's arm, felt its coldness even through the material, and asked, "How you survived this?"

They were so close. Bucky's breath tickled Sam's face, the green in his eyes as prominent as the grey.

He could have closed the gap between himself and Bucky, kissed him as gently and sweetly as he deserved— he realized, not with a start, that if the circumstances were different he would have done exactly that.

Bucky ran a hand over his face. "Where I'm from. You know, where was _before_ I came here—" he paused, his breath hitched. "Sam, I know you. You'll take whatever I say and you'll think too much about it."

"Bucky." A desperate severity in his voice that he didn't know he contained.

"Fae magic just... wasn't helping. I tried _everything._ Witches; shamans; herbalists; one traveling sangoma," Bucky breathed out, "and none of them worked on me, okay? Not a single one, not a single thing. The pain got worse and worse and worse— Do you know what it's like to have this... actual _diamonds_... break through your skin? Tear you apart like that?" A sheen of hardened tears danced, painfully and unshed in his eyes.

"I— You don't have to tell me anything, Buck," Sam said softly, both his hands set to rest on the hard line of Bucky's shoulders. "Sure, I'd _love_ to listen to you go on and on... But you don't have to tell me anything."

A watery smile on his lips, Bucky pulled away. "My mother took me to a wizard. She saw how much pain I was in, how much blood I was losing, and she thought I was gonna die. Hell, _I_ thought I was gonna die. We all did."

The words are an attack, an opening of arenas, of new doors. "A wizard?" Sam asked.

Something in Bucky's eyes flashed; something violent and angry that Sam couldn't place. He took a full step away from Sam, away from his reach.

"No." Bucky cursed. "Forget I said anything. Please, Sam."

His thoughts were not yet formed, the ideas a scramble of words banging against the sides of his skull.

All the space on the steps and Bucky pushed right passed him. His muttered "I'm late for Chemistry" a wisp of air.

✴️

_The wizard, the warlock, the witch._  
_The devil, the Gods, the rich._  
_Where do you get your magic from?_  
_Where do you get your magic from?_  
_W_ _here do you get your magic from?_

 

The wizard, the warlock, the witch. So much more than the leading title of a silly nursery, the trifecta of magic wielders. 

  
They were a balance in society. Living and working in harmony, the helping hand of the Presidency. Its right and left, or so the stories had gone.

All magic must come from somewhere, of course. There was no power without belief.

There were the Witches and the fruits of earth, their span of Goddesses.

There were the Warlocks and their Divine.

And there were the Wizards, who brewed cauldrons of potion into the dawn. Their powers drawn from a different sort of Divinity, a darker sort.

Presidency and Democracy, as the Myths liked to tell it, decreed every citizen under their rule had the freedom to worship whomever they pleased. To draw their powers from wherever granted them strength.

_The wizard, the warlock, the witch._

  
Except Wizardry had been banned almost a century ago. And those Wizards who didn't register were captured, kept, killed. Forced into hiding.

✴️

He held his few notebooks to his desk, under the fold of his arms, toed at a crack in the floor.

"Obviously the closest non-African interpretation of Kianda is the Mermaid," Nakia said, her thick textbook held unopened beneath her sturdy hands.

Montgomery High students were allowed one extra subject per year, viable for change every second semester. Between Miss Prince's _Gladiator Study_ class and Ms Hill's _Cultural and Religious History_ class, the choice was an easy one. At least for Sam.

Okoye, one of only three senior students in the class, waved a hand. "That is more a translation," she corrected, "The closest non-African interpretation of Kianda is Iemanja. The Brazilian Goddess."

"But she is also of African origin," Nakia answered swiftly.

Sam listened intently.

He enjoyed the class more than most other's— loved the sound of the names, the weight of the history, the discovery of connections between the past and the present.  
He just couldn't grasp it that well, especially not as well as Okoye and Nakia.

"We don't know much about the Goddess Kianda," Miss Hill said. Perched on the edge of the heavy brown desk, she spread her hands and rested her gaze on each of the fifteen students in turn. "We know she is an Angolan Goddess of the sea, a deity of seas and the protector of fisherman, and not much more."

A sturdy voice came from near the middle of the classroom. "My mother says that some new Wizards draw their power from her," Sif said, each syllable pronounced with reckless care and in her heavy accent. "That is, the Wizards that aren't evil."

"None of the Wizards are evil," Miss Hill reprimanded, voice a blade cutting without hesitancy, "Nobody inherently is."

She had been the _Gladiator Study_ teacher before she shattered her legs in an accident. The flash in her eyes, her body always ready to spring to action; sometimes, it was as if she forgot herself and thought the class to be the arena.

Sam spoke up then, the question firing before he could contain it. "Then why are they banned?"

"The Presidency will always fear people more powerful than them," Miss Hill answered, her hands shook in her lap. A smile plastered on her face, she redirected effortlessly, "Nakia mentioned Iemanja being of African origin. Who thinks they can elaborate on this?"

Distant voices. Reaching Sam and yet not reaching Sam at all. As if he was under a crushing body of water, the words were empty sounds and the voices hollowed whispers.

 _Tell me about the Wizards_ , Sam wanted to demand. Wanted to put all the power in his voice that he could. _Tell me everything that you know, and then tell me more._

Bucky had spoken of the Wizards. And it was as if his words alone had opened a floodgate.

What was that effect again? Where something was brought to your attention and then it seemed to be in every sentence and every phrase.  
The Baader-Meinhoff effect.

Somewhere, near the back of the school, Steve and Bucky had an _English_ class. Sam could see them huddled together, could feel their presence as strongly as if they were standing beside him.

A lick of pain across his shoulders.

Thoughts constructed in his mind. Wild and barely tangible, barely making any sense. But they were there; insistent and persistent, begging Sam to hear them. To see what they were offering.

°

Five minutes after the bell rang through the school, the class was excused.

Backpack low on his shoulders, Sam shuffled from the room.

Cross-legged on the floor, the wall of lockers a steady backrest, Steve sat hunched over a hardcover drawing pad the length of his forearm. It sat balanced across his lap, rattled under the boy's quick pencil strokes.

Steve's hair was a curtain of soft blond. Smooth and silken to the touch, Sam had trimmed it for him enough times to know. Strands of hair that Steve didn't bother to push away fell across his forehead.

Sam pushed the tip of his shoe against Steve's calf.

"What're you drawing?" Sam asked, peering into the pad and catching just a glimpse of shadowed wings against a pale blue background.

Steve shut the pad quickly, before Sam could see anything more. "Nothing," he said, standing and hanging his satchel over a shoulder.

"You're alone," Sam, ignoring Steve's rushed and clumsy awkwardness, noted.

"He's sitting through _Gladiator 101,_ " he said with an easy shrug, a gathering and fall of his shoulders. Voice, lowered to an exaggerated aside, Steve continued, "With Prince' _s_ _seniors_."

Their footsteps echoed around them, bounced off walls and danced into nothing. It rung noisily in the school's deserted halls.

Soft sun fell through cracks in the clouds, greeted Sam and Steve as they pushed through the doors.

"I thought he didn't care about that," Sam muttered. Eyes narrowed into a pair of slits, it wasn't hard to find Steve's car in the semi-deserted parking lot and head straight for it.

Steve adjusted the bag's strap on his shoulder. His squared artist's fingers clenched around the thick fabric. His halo of gold dimmed, for a single noticeable second.

"I don't know," Steve said, a gentle caution in his eyes.

With hands used to his VW and its catching lock, Steve popped the trunk open. It was a disaster zone in there. Sam shook his head; Steve ignored him, moved aside crumpled clothes and empty boxes to make space for a package of his paints.

When the trunk fell shut, it did so with a reverberating thud.

Eyes cut to Sam, quickly cut away as Steve made for the driver-side door. Again that easy shrug of his shoulders, in this moment unprompted.

They slipped into either side of the car and Sam immediately reached for the radio. His favourite talk show would begin in a few minutes. He didn't always admit it, but he loved the jaunty theme music.

Steve's keys jangled.

"It's probably not gonna be something he really goes for," Steve said, strapping in. "I think he's just testing it out for now. 'Cause he's been feeling really frustrated lately."

"Frustrated? Why?" Sam asked, copying the action.

Steve shook his head, he didn't know. It was an easy act to spot, at least for someone who knew Steve as Sam did— who could recognize Steve from the sound of his inhale, the weight of his step, the words he chose to use. Who spent as much time with Steve as Sam did.

So, it wasn't just Bucky hiding things, keeping secrets and skirting the edges of conversation. Sam scowled at the bitter thought as it bred in his mind. It was Steve, too.

The three of them were connected. They told each other everything. What were the two of them hiding? Were they just going to keep secrets from him forever?  
Whatever it was, Sam didn't care. He just wanted to know. He could handle anything—

Unless—

Steve cleared his throat, broke into the cacophony of Sam's panicked mind. "He's just... Frustrated."

His fingers, covered in dots of paint and tipped in gold nail polish, played with the dial on the radio until he was happy with the volume.  
Then Sam turned it up just a little louder, because he could. Because he was irritated.

"You wanna get coffee before we head home?" Steve asked.

He did. "Not really," he said.

The orange light Steve had slowed down for turned a deep red. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam took Steve in. The way Steve held himself; the way Steve looked; the way Steve acted. It was all the same, yet it was entirely different.

They would tell him, wouldn't they? He swallowed and his eyes fluttered shut at the idea, the painful thought planting sturdy roots in the cavern of his chest.

They would tell him if they were dating. Sam was certain.

And his breath caught in his lungs. He didn't want to be in this car any longer. He didn't want to be on the ground any longer.  
He wanted to run and lift off into the sky and fly away where neither Steve nor Bucky could find him.

"You sure?" Steve queried. Unmoving, ignoring the spurts of honking from the car behind. " _Krispy_ _Kreme_ 's got a new range of doughnuts. Wanda and Pietro both say they're really good."

A soft sigh sat on his tongue. Sam let exaggeration take ahold of it and turn it into something false, something that hid every burning emotion he felt.

"Is that a yes?" Steve, a smile on his lips, asked.

"It is... If you're paying."

°

 _Krispy_ _Kreme_ was full, packed from corner to corner with hardly an inch of breathing room.

Steve parked the VW in a small parking spot across from the doughnut shop.

One glance into the squat building, a sound like a laugh on his lips, Sam shook his head in a steady _'no'—_ there was no space for either of them inside, and Sam was not spending his afternoon squashed into a corner or balancing on the edge of a stool, with the rotting sweaty stench of high-schoolers sitting in his nose.

Sam stuffed his hands into the jacket pockets. He walked away from the car with little more than a gesture of his head and the expectation that Steve would follow.

"Where to?" Steve asked, catching up with a slow jog and falling back into step with Sam.

" _Frenchy's_."

 _Frenchy's_ was an indie café that stood around the corner. Brick-faced and fronted by a large, polished window, it was where the three of them often went after school. At least on days when the _Kreme_ was too full— which was most days.

The door hit against the small bell, it twinkled gently and announced their entrance.

Rich earthly scents of coffee as it roasted; honey and tea; sugar sweet doughnuts as they fried.

Sam breathed it all in, lets his eyes flutter at the warmth settled in his stomach, curled around him like a comforting blanket. Or a pair of strong arms.

"The usual?" Steve asked.

Waiting for just the hint of a nod from Sam, Steve made a beeline for the counter to place their order.  
Sam wove his way through the uncluttered smattering of tables to the booth sat snug in the corner.

He sank into the seat, an exhale of an escaped a soft sigh. Exhausted. Sam was exhausted. And the weight of everything seemed powerful enough to bury him. It was almost too much work to keep his his head from dropping back, _almost_.

"Are you sleeping?" Steve asked quietly.

He fell into the seat across. A soft papery flitter sounded out: Steve placing Sam's coffee before him and sliding a doughnut on a napkin the short distance.

Sam cracked an eye open and shook his head. "Sadly," he said, straightening up and putting his elbows on the table, "no."

 _Frenchy's_ was impeccable. The table missing the layer of grease and crumbs Sam used to finding in cafés and restaurants.  
The brown of the bricked walls met the wood-paneled and black leather booths, met carved tables and chairs and soft overhead lighting.

He took a sniff of the espresso. Blew at it twice and took a sip.

Sam was sure he could live like this. Spend his day moving from coffee shop to coffee shop, sipping on a different drink each time and munching on whatever the house special was.

The tearing of paper, the tinkle of sugar falling into liquid. Of course, Sam thought as he watched Steve empty his sixth sugar packet into his black coffee, it would be ideal if he wasn't doing it alone.

"I don't get it," Sam began. "If you're gonna use so much sugar, why won't you just buy a sweeter drink?"

"I like it," Steve said. He didn't.

When they had first stumbled into _Frenchy's_ Steve had been so flustered by the barista, a short brunet named Markus, that he could barely get a full sentence out. Steve had ordered three black coffees, no sugar, and refused to change it; refused to have anyone else change it either.

The only reason he still ordered it was because, choking down an entire mug on that day, Steve had gushed. Ordered another mug of the coffee and said it was the best thing he had ever tasted.

"And," Steve continued, his smile a sheepish one, "It's the principle of the thing."

Sam couldn't help but bark. A trio of buzzes from Steve's pocket quieted his laugh; the smile on Steve's face as he read his text completely silenced it.

It was from Bucky, Sam could tell.

"Bucky said not to wait around for him, he'll see us tonight," Steve read aloud. Shooting back a quick reply and slipping the phone back into his jeans, he focused his attention on Sam. "He told me about what happened earlier. During Lunch."

Rubbing at the back of his neck with his hand, Sam said nothing. His body was an absence of pain, was without any aching for the first time in what could have been forever. He was not a superstitious person, but talking about it seemed to be nothing but a jinx.

Sam didn't want that pain, not now.  
He wanted to drink his espresso. He wanted to look across the table, stare into cerulean eyes, and allow himself a self-indulgent minute to pretend that he and Steve were on a date. Pretend that if he reached his hand out and curled it around Steve's, Steve would curl his hand right back around around Sam's.

But he couldn't have that. Not now.

A sip of his espresso, still a bit hot to the touch, freed him of having to say anything.

Steve pushed, because he never could let anything rest.

"Ma said this was going to happen. That you'd start building an immunity to it." He was worried— it was in the rigidity of his back, in the furrow of his brow, in the lines etched around his mouth. "I didn't think it'd happen so soon."

"I'm not going on a higher dosage, or anything."

"The pain, Sam. It'll only get worse," Steve pushed. "How long are they now? Six inches? That isn't even the _minimum_ length."

"I don't need you to educate me on anything, Steve," Sam said, and he fought to keep the volume of his voice beneath the buzz of the other customers and their conversations. "So if the pain gets worse, it gets worse. I'll deal with it. I don't need a _Fae_ who was born without needing to change to try and tell me anything."

"I'm trying to help," Steve argued. "I can't help that I was born Fae, and I can't help that I feel the things I feel. Sam. I couldn't be there for Bucky, I met him too late. But I'm here, and I'm _trying_ to be _here_ for you."

Sam stood. He met Steve's gaze and knew they did not match.

Fury in his eyes, misplaced and without any source that Sam could find; a pleading in Steve's eyes that struck Sam right in the center of his chest.

Steve stood too. He circled his hand around Sam's wrist, much in the way Sam hand circled his hand around Bucky's. A loose hold, one that Sam could easily break if he wanted to.

His voice a tired growl. "Let me go, Steve."

And Steve's eyes fell shut. And he breathed out slowly, as if questioning how quickly everything had changed. Sam was questioning that, too.

Steve's fingers tightened for a second but, when his eyes opened, so did the hold.

°  
They rode back in a silence that was unusual to them. Stilted and strained, as if there was not enough space and not enough oxygen in the car.

"Tell me what I can do to make this better."

Steve and Sam stopped outside his apartment door.

Did neither of his best friends understand the concept of personal space; or had they just forgot it for the day? Because Steve was standing so close Sam could crook his finger and it would brush against the side of his hand, so close that he could see the pimples along Steve's nose and the scratches in his glasses.

"We're fine, Steve," Sam said. His voice was low, a whisper because he didn't have to raise his voice to be heard. _That close_.

Steve shook his head. "I know we're fine. Just... I don't know how else to help you, and I _need_ to be there for you." There was something in his voice, something begging Sam to hear things he couldn't bring himself to speak.

Sam remembered Bucky, then. The words "don't worry" sat on his tongue. He said, instead: "Look, I might know a way."

✴️

A cup of freshly made tea placed into his mother's tired hands, Sam planted a sweet kiss to her cheek.

"Good night," he said.

Maybe if Darlene wasn't so worn out from the hours of work she had, she would have noticed the edge in his eyes, the shakiness in his voice. She would have noticed _something_.

But she just smiled and returned the kiss to Sam's cheek. "Good night, Sammy. Blessed dreams."

He turned off every light in the apartment as he made his way to his room. Whispered goodbyes that he wished he could scream.

He locked his door behind him, in case Darlene came to check him during the night.

Everything seemed to watch him, to clock his every move. To judge him even as he sat cross-legged on his bed, his foot tapping in time with the clock's second hand.

 _Ready?_ Steve texted an hour later, the clock striking just after eleven.

The city was as asleep as it got. Darlene and Sarah as close to unaware as they could possibly be; as Steve, Bucky and Sam could hope for.

 _Meet me now._ He sent back quickly.

There was the pain in his back, in his shoulders, that he couldn't quite shake.

He listened for their footsteps, heard the rattle of the metal stairs as them as they made their careful descent.

Sam took a deep breath in. He glanced around his room, cast in the familiar shadow that fell through his many windows. And couldn't help the twinge of pain in his chest.

The door stood unlocked. Atop his bed was placed a carefully written letter. He wished he could offer his mother more.

"You're ready?" Steve asked, stopping outside his window.

"Bien sûr," Sam replied. _Of course._ Nervousness ran through his veins like electricity; ate away at him and fed him at once. He spied Bucky, standing behind Steve and leaning casually against the railing. "You're coming with us?" Surprise in the question that Sam couldn't quite mask.

Bucky nodded. "I go where you go. Whatever we do, we do it together."


End file.
